_Out West_
Harvard had taught me this—that I did not know a thing—not even the
meaning of human life. Somehow I think a college education is of benefit
to two classes of people only—those who desire to acquire a social
position and those who want to get training in a certain subject. I have
not the battle instinct and could never see any use in competition. If I
had not come of good people I might have wanted to fight to get with
good people, and that is about all college can give. I can remember
getting only one real thrill to go out in the world and do something,
and that was after a sort of valedictory talk by old Doctor Grey. I had
always cared for the out of doors and it appears I stood well in botany.
When the venerable professor told us that it takes fifty years to make a
nutmeg orchard, and that a million dollars was waiting anyone who would
walk into Boston with him the next day and prove to certain capitalists
that he could tell the difference between the male and female nutmeg, my
commercial instinct was aroused and a gleam of ambition came to me for
the first time. I resolved to find out about the male and the female
nutmeg.
There was no way to learn anything about beauty in Harvard—no
instruction in it and no honors for it. Taking their cue from the
Pilgrim Fathers and, since then, the Church, they did not believe in the
value of any of the senses of the body, but only in the quality of the
human mind and the power to ratiocinate. Any expression or feeling for
beauty, except that made by sacred music, was common, vulgar, and to be
repressed. If Harvard could manage to produce one Corot, one Beethoven,
or one Michael Angelo, her name would be known longer in future ages
than it will be for all the small imitation Shakespeares she has sent
out over the country. Even Mr. Emerson, in my opinion, was half ashamed
of his lyrical gift; and the elder Story, the sculptor, is more honored
in Boston for a law book he wrote, before thirty, than for any of his
statues.
One day in Mr. Story’s studio, in Europe, was a group of American
business men who always made it more or less one of their loafing
places. Of course, they had all been well bred enough to wander around
and see what the old man had been working at lately, but it was not long
before they were settled down over their cigars, discussing the business
of stocks and bonds—what they were all thinking about and all they
really cared about. Story stood it as long as he could, walking
nervously up and down in silence. Finally he whirled, saying:
“Gentlemen, gentlemen, gentlemen, Phidias built the Parthenon. Who in
hell were the stockholders?”
After my graduation, it was a question of a career. I had spent four
years to find out that I did not know anything, and was to spend three
more to find out what I wanted to do. All my ancestors had lived by
talk. I had inherited the “gift of gab,” but there seemed to be no
market for it in my generation. It had turned from the pulpit to the
stage and novels, in order to get an audience. Rhetoric and fiery
oratory is not an honest way to teach, as it hypnotizes the listeners.
Reading a speech coolly the next morning in the newspaper is the only
fair way to judge it. My father felt this and changed his preaching into
a dry, matter-of-fact style, not caring to influence by his personality.
He immediately lost his audience.
Groping for an occupation, I went to New York and, with a
half-formulated idea to become an architect, called on Russel Sturgis.
He was a blond-headed young man, about thirty-five, and seemed to me to
be quite old and efficient. Looking at me very keenly, he said:
“Do you know anything about the bearing power of bricks?”
“No.”
“Do you care anything?”
“No.”
“Have you any rich relatives to back you?”
“No.”
“You don’t want to be an architect. You want to be a painter.”
This quite astonished me, for I rather thought I did, although I had
never formulated the desire in my mind. Besides, to be a painter was not
an occupation—but rather on par with a strolling player, a tinker, or a
mountebank. Mr. Sturgis told me that my ideas were all wrong and that
the painters of the day were real people and, furthermore, making a lot
of money. Of course, I could not start in then, but resolved to hold the
thought in the back of my mind. In the meantime, my New England coat was
feeling so tight as almost to burst the seams if I did not get out of
it. I wanted to get away from something. I knew not what. But freedom
lay away from home, so, starting out with two hundred and fifty dollars,
I went as far as I dared, which was Cincinnati, Ohio.
There was a Boston colony in Cincinnati and I landed among friends,
keeping the plunge from being as bad as it might have been. I remember
nothing of the trip out except the foundries of Pittsburgh. This
wonderful display of great columns of fire, shooting up to the sky,
seemed to represent, as I had never seen it before, the Spirit of Flame.
Upon arrival, I was seized by Jim Perkins and not allowed to spend a
night in a hotel. His brother was married to a relative of close friends
of ours on Milton Hill near Boston, and this was enough introduction for
him to take me into his home. Afterward, I lived with Chap Dwight, whose
mother had been an intimate friend of my father’s, and it was here that
I got my first taste of a European influence. He was a wealthy bachelor
and lived like one, but had very cosmopolitan ideas of life—a new change
for me.
My first job was an agent for an oil firm which had its main office in
Pittsburgh. It may have been the only one I could get, but I rather
imagine that my droolings and dreamings over the wondrous flames of the
foundries of Pittsburgh invested the work (in my mind) with romance and
took away (in the minds of my relatives) the sting of my having to be
called a salesman. The first month I made one sale. Overjoyed at getting
an order for a thousand barrels of oil, I signed a contract to deliver
them at a certain time f. o. b.—Cincinnati. Harvard College had taught
me many things, but had neglected to give me any idea whatever of those
letters, “f. o. b.” My salary was fifty dollars a month, the freight was
sixty, so I quit at the end of the month, owing my boss ten dollars.
I considered the matter closed and that I had learned a good lesson;
but, unfortunately, I had had a large amount of business stationery
printed. Thinking my young cousins could use it to draw on and desiring
never to see it again, I sent it home. But I had reckoned without my
dear mother’s sense of economy. For years I was forced to receive
letters from her with
EDWARD SIMMONS
AGENT —— OIL CO.
at the head of the page.
After this not very profitable occupation I turned my attention to
tutoring, fitting a boy for West Point, and another for the Yale
Scientific School. The former was the son of an ignorant Irishman and
had got a limited amount of information at the Jesuit school. I taught
him geography, history of the country and states, of which he knew
nothing, and I made him learn the Declaration of Independence and simple
mathematics. He went in with flying colors.
I found that my business career did not interfere in any way with my
social life in Cincinnati. I was still anxious to be an artist and was
painting in my bedroom every night. The city was, even at that time,
beginning to be an art center for the Middle West. Nicholas Longworth,
grandfather of the husband of Miss Alice Roosevelt, had shown a
particular aptitude for making money and a better one for spending it
the right way. As a young man he had climbed the hills of the town and,
looking from them across the water, decided it would be impossible for
the city to extend in but one way. Accordingly, he put his savings into
land, always keeping one lap ahead of the spread of population. Caring
for beautiful things, he began to encourage the fine arts, and it was at
his home that I saw my very first collection of oil paintings. Concord
was the home of the steel engraving, and the copies of oils that my
father had brought back with him from Europe and hung up in the Old
Manse swore at everything else in the house. The Longworth collection
was mostly German pictures—by Koeck-Koeck, Meyer von Bremen, and two by
Lessing of the life of Huss, the martyr, which were evidently worthless,
but so aroused my decorative instinct that I remembered them for years
after.
Wandering up the main street of Cincinnati one evening, I saw a name
plate on a doorway—one I had never heard—and after it the magic word
“Artist.” I was thrilled. There was actually some one in this town
living and having his being and spending his time painting. I used to
pass back and forth before this sign, which was at the bottom of a
stairway, like a dentist’s or a photographer’s; and finally, one evening
just at dusk, I got the courage to go up. Knocking timidly on the door,
I was greeted with loud roars of “Come in.” The dingy room was a holy of
holies to me—I had never seen an artist’s studio before. In the far
corner was a man in a khaki apron, using the blackest of soft soap to
wash what were, in my eyes, enormous brushes. Heretofore, my own
experiments in oil painting had been made with the usual small brushes
and a tin box used by maiden ladies. The bigness and boldness of this
establishment took my breath away.
When I got the courage to look about I saw that, besides this big Norse
viking with the tumbled hair, there was a sculptor in the corner,
modeling—think of the daring!—a figure in the nude! I must have
presented a ridiculous figure, for there was a laugh behind my back,
and, turning, I saw a woman almost naked, sitting on a stool! They asked
me why I had wanted to come in, and I told them I tried to paint, but
that I had never seen a studio before. I looked with wonder at the big
canvases on the wall, and even then realized that here was a sense of
color altogether different from that of the German artists, and that the
capacity for brushwork was a marvel—for this painter was none other than
Frank Duveneck, who had just returned from Munich.
When I went up to West Walnut Hills and told them that I had found a
real artist in Cincinnati, I was laughed at in a very pitying way; but
later on, when this same Duveneck gave a showing of his work in Boston
and was hailed as the “new American Velásquez,” I felt a great
satisfaction, although I was no longer in Cincinnati and could not enjoy
my triumph.
After an experience as a casket maker’s assistant, where I was expected
to board with him and sleep in the manufactory, and eventually—great
stress was laid on this—become a partner in the business, I decided to
accept an offer my cousins had made me to go farther west and become a
clerk in a department store they had started in San Francisco. I had
previously received a proposition to become a salesman of cheap jewelry,
for, so this man told me, my line of talk would be a sure-fire success
for making sales to “servant girls at the back door.”
My ticket as far as Chicago was given me by Chap Dwight, who was
connected with railways, and for the rest of the way I paid for a
first-class fare and no Pullman—in those days it was possible to sit up
in the smoker. This I did as far as Cheyenne, where my troubles began. I
was told that the train would stop for an hour, so I alighted to take a
look about the town and get some dinner. The only thing that aroused my
interest was a sign marked “Simmons” over a doorway with steps leading
down to it and quite evidently a dive. There were two baize doors above
which shone bright lights, with reams of smoke rising above the heads of
men. I went down and started to push open the door, but just at that
moment loud voices were raised inside and something whizzed by my head.
I looked up, and, not six inches from my outstretched hand was a clean
bullethole through the door. I never opened it.
Trying not to hurry, I made my way back to my train and started to get
aboard, searching in every pocket for my ticket. It was gone. I begged
clemency from the conductor and tried to make him remember that I had
got on at Chicago, but I had no berth, and there were too many deadbeats
trying to get to California in those days for him to have any pity
whatsoever for me. In desperation, I spoke to the baggageman. He advised
me to go as far as my money would take me and then telegraph home for
more. Anything was better than being left at midnight in this city of
careless bullets. Out to Rawlins, Wyoming, was as far as my pocketbook
would take me, and I would have two dollars and fifty cents left for a
bed and telegram.
Imagine a town eight thousand feet above the sea, freezing cold, again
the middle of the night. How I got off the train and over to the hotel,
where shown the only light, I do not know. I do know, however, that I
put a chair under the handle of the door, candle and matches and my
pistol beside the bed, before I went to sleep. Daylight showed no
improvement, but only took away the air of dark mystery and bared to the
eye a bleakness indescribable. To have been told that there was no
telegraph office would not have surprised me a bit, but to learn that it
was “not a money order station” was almost worse. Sitting on a stone in
front of the hotel, I tried to think out my problem. The temperature was
twenty or thirty below zero, nothing grew in the ground, and all the ice
and snow was blown away by the terrible winds as soon as it fell. That
morning two men had been found frozen stiff within a hundred yards of
the hotel. They had not seen the light, which was on the other side of
the house, and had simply lain down and decided to stop. To see the dead
bodies of these men who had given in a hundred yards from safety was one
of the greatest lessons I ever learned—NEVER STOP!
I soon became acquainted with the population, which consisted of mine
host and his Chinese cook, the storekeeper and sheriff, two hundred men
in the roundhouse, and two women who earned their living in a
questionable manner at night and spent the daylight hours sewing and
mending for the workmen. Although these women were undoubtedly under
thirty, they looked aged and worn, and their hands were calloused from
the needle. Every vestige of attraction had departed long ago, and I
wondered how they could be so kindly and cheerful amid such surroundings
of hopelessness.
At last I formulated a plan and, going to the storekeeper, who was sure
to have cash on hand, I asked him if he ever lent money and at what per
cent? He said, “yes,” but what security could I give? Two or three
hundred tramps passed through the town every day, and my word that it
would be sent to him was no good whatever. Again I went out to my stone.
A Yankee is seldom in so tight a place that he can’t wiggle out, and I
knew if I could only think hard enough I could solve the problem. Going
back, I said to my friend, the storekeeper:
“If you knew that there was a sum of money deposited in your name in a
certain bank in Cincinnati, would you give it to me?”
He answered, “Yes.”
I telegraphed to my friend Harrison, who must have sensed that I would
have trouble on the way and had told me to be sure to call on him for
anything whatever.
“Place one hundred dollars to the credit of Sam Atkins in the First
National Bank of Cincinnati.”
He understood, for after a cashier’s confirmation for the careful Mr.
Atkins, I received my hundred, less five per cent, and was on my way
again.
We were in the real West now. All along, beside the tracks, were huts
built of piled-up abandoned railway ties. Here men had tried to spend
the night crawling in over a fire, many having been burned to death this
way. It was surely an example of the survival of the fittest.
Constantly, from the car window, could be seen the former emigrant wagon
trail, and everywhere were the bleached bones of bison and oxen. Every
time a hill rose high enough to count, there was a little white cross,
marking the graves of a baby or perhaps a wife whose ashes were
scattered, like those of the engine, God knows where. No calvary could
have shown more evidences of pain and suffering than the trail of these
first argonauts across the plains.
A fat man on the train took an interest in me, and it flattered me
greatly. I have since met his type all over the world: he is what is
called in gambling parlance, a “capper.” I was dressed well and he
probably thought I was wealthy, for he turned and asked me if I did not
want to get off with him in Green River and go to a place where we could
get beer and free lunch (then unknown to me) for one “bit.” This idea
pleased me, as the meals at the stations, which included bear meat and
all sort of luxuries, were one dollar. The town was nothing but
sagebrush and hills, with one little straight street down to a dive.
While we were eating and drinking, in came a man whose type I had been
warned against in Cincinnati, where all the talk was of the West. He was
a handsome, sharp, keen, inbred Yankee with a fur coat down to his
heels, and kept swinging a bunch of mink skins while simulating
drunkenness. I should have known that he was the three-card-monte man,
as he fitted perfectly the description that had been given to me; but he
was such an artist that, in my youthful ignorance, he convinced me that
he was the _real_ drunk that the three-card-monte man imitated.
Swaggering around the room, he fished in his pocket for some money and,
pulling out a roll of bills, threw it on the floor in disgust. Taking
out a lot of gold, he indicated that it was the only money he cared to
use.
“I’ve been in the land of Mormons,” he cried, producing a pack of cards,
“and I learned a new game which I’ll show you. It’s called ‘Find the
Mormon.’”
All the men, including a crowd of my acquaintances from the train, who
had come in, crowded around him, myself in the front row. My friend, the
capper, tried his hand and won several times, making a great haul. Then
he urged me to bet and, upon my telling him I was broke, thrust a
twenty-dollar bill into my hand. I bet it and won, paying back my debt,
and then held out the other bill to the bartender to change so I could
divide with my “pal.” He reached his head down below the bar and I
suddenly felt the atmosphere change....
I turned to my friend. He was gently fingering a gun. With a cold,
steely eye, the three-card-monte man stood, a pistol in his hand, with
one end lying on the bar, casually pointing my way. In front of me the
“barkeep” had risen with another. I looked behind for help, and all the
men from the train had silently melted away. Leaving the twenty on the
bar, I turned and walked slowly out of the place, not daring to increase
my pace by one second until I reached the train.
I told my story to the conductor, and he said if I had carried off any
winnings these men would have followed me to the ends of the earth and
taken it from me. If I had been killed, they would have hitched my body
to a horse and dragged it out into the sagebrush, leaving the coyotes to
do the rest.
As an unpleasant sequel to this, I read in one of the first papers I
picked up in San Francisco an account of two brothers from Vermont who
got in with the same men. The first lost all of his money and borrowed
all of his brother’s, finally getting into a row with the gamblers, and
was shot dead. The other brother escaped and somehow got to the train,
going on to Salt Lake City, where he telegraphed home for more money.
Watching his time, he went back to the saloon, shot the “barkeep” and
capper dead, and left the three-card-monte man dying on the floor.
I carried a pistol on this trip, but up to this time I had had no chance
to use it. However, since I had looked down the barrels of several
myself, I was beginning to feel very brave. That romantic idea of
“avenging one’s honor or that of one’s women” had quite got into my
blood. The train broke down at Winnemucca, in a country covered with six
feet of snow. A crowd of us had been having a good time amid much
good-natured talking and chaffing, when I saw one of the trainmen,
evidently drunk, sitting beside a woman passenger, with his arms about
her, kissing her violently. Her husband was standing beside the seat,
protesting, with no effect. Instantly I was at the head of a crowd that
took the offender by the neck and threw him off the train. Without my
counting the cost, I became the hero of the hour. But all was not
finished. Our intoxicated friend came around under the window and raged
threateningly until there was nothing for me to do but go out to meet
him. Drawing my pistol, I strode on to the platform. The minute he saw
me his hand went to his pocket and drew out his gun, but I had him
covered.
It was just a question of who dared to shoot first. My blood ran cold;
but just at that moment four hands came round the corner of the car, two
had him by the back of the neck and two had taken his gun away. Then
slowly but surely he was withdrawn from view. The conductor asked me not
to report the occurrence, as the man was a fireman, a family man, and
all right when sober. I was so glad to get away with my life that I
would never have told a soul. Furthermore, I sold my pistol as soon as I
reached San Francisco, and have never carried another.
The rarest sight I ever saw was the sudden change from six feet of snow
to the southern slope of the Sierras. With a plunge from winter into
summer, the whole character of the landscape changed. The air was balmy,
the sky was a soft blue, and looking like orchards of apple trees of
enormous size were the live oaks that covered the slopes of those mighty
mountain sides. But best of all, beside the tracks, and almost denying
the month of February, was growing tender young green grass! I picked
some of it, put it in my buttonhole, and cried. I had fallen in love
with California.
After that every shanty station saw me out of the car, smelling the
atmosphere and feasting my eyes on the beauty of this big, good-natured,
sweet, mild country. At one of these mountain stops, feeling hungry, I
bought a large slab of custard pie. Beside the tracks was a cage on
wheels in which lay a big female grizzly whose owner was taking her to
San Francisco to be sold. The man was nothing loath to explain his
prowess in capturing such a fearsome beast, and we all crowded about,
myself, of course, in the front row. Looking at us while talking and
gesticulating, his hand went fairly well within the bars, whereupon the
lazy grizzly, seemingly dozing, closed her mouth over his fingers and
backed slowly to the rear of the cage, pulling his arm in with her. With
that he whirled, fed his arm in between the bars and, quickly looking
around, grabbed my pie and slapped the bear in the face with it. Of
course it splashed, and she immediately let go of him to lick her chops,
but his hand came out with the mark of every tooth upon its back. In
spite of its lack of humor, I truly believe that this is the original
custard-pie story.
San Francisco was a very different city in those days from what it is
to-day; the sea came almost up to Montgomery Street, and beyond Van Ness
Avenue there was nothing but sand dunes shifting and changing every
minute. This is practically all new now, as the great fire of 1906 swept
it away. I remember the Bay and the ferryboat, the long pier at the
Oakland Mole and passing the romantic and lonely Goat Island. The water
seemed strangely quiet and strangely blue to me, whose only experience
of the sea was the coast of Maine.
The Chinese and Mexican quarters of the city were a marvel, for both of
these peoples had managed to take bits of their own countries in their
entirety and transplant them on this sandy soil. San Francisco is unique
(as American cities go) in being able to keep within her bosom the
civilizations of foreign peoples, in their original state, long enough
for them to fertilize and bring forth the best of themselves. Visitors
to her shore do not immediately change their manners and customs to
agree with hers—perhaps for the very good reason that she hasn’t any to
agree with—but if it were no uncommon sight to see a Mexican sombrero,
it was no less a common one to see a Chinese woman in native costume,
feet bound, in high-stilted slippers, looking for all the world as if
she had stepped down from an ancient vase, and propelled up Market
Street by her big-footed “amah.”
This thoroughfare seemed to fade away at the old city hall, which was
then only in the process of construction. In fact, the only landmark
which appears to have survived conflagrations and the march of progress
is the Cliff House. Although it has burned down several times, each new
building immediately takes on the air of the old, and whether, by the
intention of its builders or the architectural limitations of the rock
upon which it is built, it looks the same to-day as it did when I first
saw it in ’75. However one may deplore the mushroom existence of his
familiar landmarks downtown, one has only to take a trip—now shorter
many minutes by the change from horse to gasoline—out to the Pacific
Ocean and, from a little table, sheltered by glass from the might of the
winds, look out upon the same horizon, the same calm blue of the waters,
and, best of all, the same Seal Rocks with their brown-coated
inhabitants (grown woefully smaller in numbers now), sunning themselves
and teaching their young that protection lies in remaining near at home.
The most characteristically Western survival of the “days of forty-nine”
were the San Francisco bars—not speaking of the smartest ones, for those
I seldom invaded. There was nothing less than ten cents in the town;
nickels they gave away and pennies were thrown down the gutter.
Everything was sold in terms of “bits.” Of course, there were two- and
four-bit coins, but a one was the survival of the mixture of currency
that had gotten into the land. Mexican, Canadian, French, etc., small
silver coins were all bunched together as “bits,” and eight were called
a dollar, making one the value of twelve and one-half cents. A drink
theoretically cost a “bit,” but if you gave a quarter in payment, you
received ten cents change. They were bound to take ten cents if you
offered it, but too many deals of this kind in the same place elicited
some such muttered remark as, “Tight Easterner,” or, “Why don’t you take
some of the furniture along with you when you go?” The free lunch, which
was _really_ free, was served by gorgeous big men in clean white aprons,
and for the price of one drink, you could have such a repast as boiled
mutton and caper sauce, salmon and cream gravy with mashed potatoes, all
sorts of biscuits, apple pie, fruit, and coffee. Should you dare offer a
tip to this husky waiter (or, indeed, to anyone in all California at
that time), you ran the risk of a strong right arm or, worse still, a
tongue-lashing such as you had never heard in the effete East.
The price of a newspaper was also vague, but you were on the safe side
if you offered Willie no less than a dime; for silver and gold were the
only metals this child cared for. Coppers and nickels he threw into the
gutter and made you a present of the paper, remarking that if you were
so poor as that he would give you one. Willie was a character. We never
knew where he came from or where he lived, but he had a face like one of
Sir Joshua Reynolds’s angels and must have been the model who sat to the
Lord for the type of “Mother’s Darling.” He was under ten years old,
slight and rather tall, with great blue eyes and curly yellow hair. His
occupations were selling matches by day and newspapers by night, and
when business was slack he amused himself by calling ribald
verses—parodies on such popular songs as “Pop Goes the Weasel”—at the
bankers who passed by without buying. He stammered badly, adding much to
the effectiveness of some of the lines. His passion was gambling, and
his first utterance on meeting an acquaintance was, “M-m-m-m-match you
for a dime?”
One day one of the clerks, a Southerner, and myself put up a job on
Willie and offered to show him “three-hand matching.” Each choosing a
different side of the coin, we won all of his cash in about ten minutes.
Still in the game, he bet his matches, and, of course, we skinned him
again. His lip began to tremble, but he pulled himself together and,
saying, “B-b-b-busted, by God,” stalked out of the place as pretty a
gentleman as ever there was. We called him back to get his matches, and
tried to explain. At first he was furious at our daring to think he was
no sport, but finally he saw the joke and a light came into his eyes.
That was at noon; at six o’clock, passing the Chronicle building, I saw
what appeared to be a pile of boys, all absolutely absorbed in something
going on in their midst. In the center was Willie, beside him a pal, and
between them one of those formless caps that boys affect, entirely full
of dimes and quarters. He looked up and saw me; not a muscle moved in
his face, but after a second, his left eye slowly closed as if in sleep.
In spite of its being wide open, San Francisco was then one of the
cleanest towns I have ever known. The French spirit had invaded it, and
here again the Western civilization had taken the best from these
foreigners—in this case, their cooking. The Poodle Dog and Marchand’s
were already flourishing with their _Cabinets Particuliers_ and for the
first time in my life I saw wine drunk everywhere. The prostitutes were
kept to themselves in one section of the city, and any woman who stayed
out on the streets alone at night dared not stop and look in a shop
window or loiter on a corner, as she would be taken by the arm by a
large policeman and sent to Dupont Street.
This street led up the hill to Chinatown, and all along its sides were
rows of one-story buildings, divided into small cubicles, each with one
window and a swinging door that led directly in from the sidewalk.
Everyone walked here, and it was the thoroughfare for one of the most
fashionable churches, even though, sitting at the windows or leaning on
the swing gates, were women of all nationalities, addressing the
passers-by in the language of their country.
Everywhere were the earmarks of a populace plunged suddenly from hard
work and poverty into riches greater than they could conceive of, and
with no time to make the necessary adjustments. There were some attempts
at making social distinctions, but it was difficult under the
circumstances. Mrs. So-and-so, who lived on Nob Hill, was probably only
one generation removed from the washtubs of Cripple Creek, while I, a
poor assistant salesman in a department store, was a graduate of Harvard
College. The father of one young woman upon whom I used to call had been
so busy counting his recent millions that he had not had time to build
himself one of those mansions with a drawing-room, but still stuck to a
“parlor,” and used to retire gracefully to the kitchen and allow his
daughter to entertain me, uninterrupted, in the front room of the house.
In fact, he never made his appearance, and I saw the mother only once,
both evidently departing to the nether regions at the first ring of the
doorbell. Such a situation would never have been allowed in New England
unless the young couple were engaged, but out West the second generation
held full sway.
One home, now devoted, I think, to an art institute, had, in the front
hallway, a terra-cotta dado with Greek heads running around it; and,
lest there should be no mistake, the name of each hero was painted
below. But the artist was no Greek scholar. Many words were misspelled,
and in several cases (worse still) the feminine article η was placed,
instead of ο, before a masculine name. What cared the lady of the house
for a small thing like that, when she could take me up in an elevator
(almost an unknown thing at that time) and show me, stowed away in her
attic, fifteen bales of Oriental rugs? And I had tried to sell her
_one_!
Quite in contrast with this residence was that of David Colton—pure
white marble of Greek architecture, with a beautiful lawn sloping down
to a hedge of enormous calla lilies. Some months after leaving San
Francisco, I heard of Mr. Colton away up in the Shasta Mountains. I was
working out my poll tax by mending roads, when an Irishman, working with
me for the same reason, stopped and, leaning on his shovel, asked me if
I knew any of “the bloods” in San Francisco. Dave Colton had started
when he did and far outstripped him, but had never ceased to be his
friend.
The Haggins’ was another of these homes where one felt the evidences of
good taste and refinement. I shall never forget one party I attended
there. One of the family had been to our store in the afternoon and
purchased some merchandise, placing special stress on the necessity of
having it delivered that day, as it was needed for the reception in the
evening—the same to which I had been invited. In the rush of closing the
store, it was noticed that these things had been overlooked, and, as the
Haggin house was on my way home, I agreed to deliver them myself.
Accordingly, I proceeded to the back door and handed these sundry brooms
and saucepans to the butler, who received them from me in shirt sleeves
as man to man. Later in the evening, with a friend from Harvard whom the
young ladies especially desired to meet, I alighted at the house from a
carriage, this time at the front door. The butler, who was English,
received me with a suspicious air, but let me get into the drawing-room,
when all of a sudden, with the light of memory in his eye, he made
rather a threatening movement toward me, but, thinking better of it,
made his way up to Mr. Haggin and, drawing him aside, whispered
excitedly in his ear. That gentleman burst out into loud guffaws of
laughter and could not refrain from telling the joke. The butler had
whispered the awful news that I was a tradesman!
No Britisher, even a servant, could possibly be expected to understand
the Californian of that day. The bigness was not confined to the natural
characteristics of the country, but seemed to have invaded the spirit of
the people, making them pleasure-loving and easy-going, and, above all,
gave them a magnificent, even if childlike, sense of humor. Then the
richness of the land and the abundance of everything made them careless
of property. Imagine a city where every humble clerk owned a horse and
carriage; imagine, if you can, that same horse and carriage to be
absolutely at the disposal of anyone—a friend or stranger—so that if you
came out of a building onto the sidewalk, and your own vehicle had
disappeared, you simply hopped into the nearest one and proceeded to
your destination. Think of the president of the Stock Exchange being
driven out of his seat by beanshooters operated by the members! Business
was slack that day, and this was merely a form of amusement. Bring them
any sort of a new toy, and they were ready to play with it immediately.
We had an oversupply of ice cream freezers at the store, so I made up my
mind to get rid of them. Every day at a certain hour I gave a
demonstration out on the sidewalk, lecturing all the time I was freezing
the cream, and handing out free samples of the stuff to the assembled
crowd. These same members of the Stock Exchange thought it a great joke
to join the antics and chaff me, while trying to force me to accept
five-dollar gold pieces for the ice cream. Of course they bought out the
entire stock of freezers; Californians are always eager to pay for their
fun.
Every once in a while there were earthquakes. The small ones were
ignored, but the large ones would send everyone tumbling out of the
buildings onto the sidewalks. It was excitement, and we lived on it.
During the Sunday sermon in one of the churches the building began to
shake, and it is told that the clergyman rose and said:
“Remember that you are in the hands of God here in church as well as
outside....”
At that a piece of plaster fell on the pulpit and he finished:
“But the vestry is good enough for me!”
It was through the store that I met Laura Fair. Hers was a tragic life.
One of those women born to be a companion to men—she was not strong
enough (or was it hard enough) to withstand the buffeting of manmade
laws. Up in Virginia City, where she lived when young, it was said that
“the front of her house always looked like a country funeral,” so many
one-man teams. It was here during the Civil War that she got into her
first trouble. Wrapping herself in the Stars and Bars, she paraded the
streets, daring anyone to stop her; and over her house, which was the
resort of the leading Secessionists, she flew the Confederate flag,
saying she would kill anyone who attempted to lower it. One day a Union
man pulled it down and she shot him dead.
A. P. Crittenden, a lawyer from South Carolina, then championed Mrs.
Fair’s cause, and she was acquitted, due to his passionate and eloquent
appeal at the trial. A close relationship between the two ensued and
they moved to San Francisco, where she was known as the attorney’s
common-law wife. After some years, Crittenden decided to send East for
his legal wife and family. Laura Fair told him directly that she would
kill him if he did. Walking up to the family group as they stood on the
Oakland ferryboat, she quickly drew a revolver from beneath her cloak
and shot him, saying:
“You have ruined the reputation of myself and daughter.”
The state of California has never executed a woman, and, while Mrs. Fair
was sentenced to be hanged at her first trial, at her second one she was
set free. During the ’seventies, she was living quietly, and I had only
vaguely heard her mentioned, when one morning my boss came to the back
of the store, saying:
“You must go out in front and wait on Laura Fair.”
I went out to serve this person, who looked more like an elderly aunt
than a murderess, and I marveled that any man would be afraid of so mild
a creature. She seemed to have no charm whatever.
The bill for her purchases amounted to about eight dollars, and shortly
after, just as a joke, I was sent to her house to collect it. The same
thin, sallow, worn-looking woman greeted me at the door. She showed,
contrary to my expectations, not the slightest touch of impropriety or
dissipation, but—wonder of wonders—when this woman spoke, the sound was
liquid music, and the words were followed by a smile so dazzling that
one could not help imagining a withered bud suddenly opening into a
beautiful flower. She called me Mr. Bill Collector and bade me sit down
and have a glass of sherry; then she questioned me about my life.
I have been told she lived on, neglected by her daughter, and once
attempting suicide, to a drab and commonplace old age; but I prefer to
think of her as she was that day, calm and beautiful by some expression
within, sitting in the quiet of her drawing-rooms, and showing the most
enthusiastic interest in the absurd aspirations of a callow youth. Laura
Fair was one of the few superwomen I have ever met.
My clerk’s salary was augmented in small ways, and one of the most
pleasant was taking the place of the literary and dramatic critic of the
_Chronicle_ while he went away for a two months’ vacation. After the
performances I used to sneak up to a saloon near the City Hall where
Market Street tailed off into nothing, and write my criticisms of the
plays over a glass of beer. I remember my chagrin when some of the
members of Mrs. Oates’s Opera Bouffe Company hunted out my lair and
burst in upon me almost nightly. It was my good fortune to hold down my
job at the time of the opening of the Baldwin Theater, and also my good
fortune to have saved that structure from burning on the day before its
opening. Strange to say, not in my capacity of critic, but that of clerk
in the store, I went back of the stage of the new theater to deliver
some packages, when I saw a naked gas jet, which was jammed against the
wall, with a flame ten feet long running up against unplaned boards. I
yelled for the stage hands and ran for a bucket of water. In ten minutes
it would have been a roaring holocaust and certain to have destroyed—not
only the theater, but the hotel above.
The opening of this playhouse (named for Lucky Baldwin) was quite a
social event, and everyone of importance was there. I was very anxious
to show some attention to a certain young lady whom I admired greatly,
so I decided to send her some flowers to wear on this night. My eyes lit
on lilies of the valley growing in pots which were quite common and
inexpensive in the East, and seemed unpretentious enough for the
pocketbook of a poor department-store clerk. The florist assured me they
would be twenty-five cents apiece; so, with my usual haste, I purchased
a dozen pots, picking off the blooms myself in the shop (wondering at
the sudden obsequiousness of the man who waited upon me) and ordering
them delivered to the young lady’s home. It was a beautiful present and
a much-envied one, but a good lesson to me. The lily of the valley is
about the only flower that does not grow prolifically in California.
Instead of being twenty-five cents a pot, they were twenty-five cents a
bloom, and my rashness cost exactly forty-five dollars. Determined to
get my money’s worth, I carried the despoiled plants out to my cousin;
but even here I was doomed to disappointment, for she informed me that
the lily of the valley was a biennial and the plants would not bloom
again for two years.
Speaking of theaters, an amusing story is told of the earlier days in
San Francisco when there was a semaphore on Telegraph Hill which
signaled the approach of the weekly or monthly steamer. It was the habit
of the citizens to drop whatever they were doing and run down to the
wharf to meet the incoming vessel. One night there was a performance at
a theater, and the heroine of the play was required to rush in crying:
“My God! What does this mean?”
This particular lady had gestures all her own and accompanied these
words by waving her arms up and down like the handles of two pumps, and
looking, at least to one member of the audience, like a human semaphore,
for a voice from the gallery shouted:
“Steamer in sight!”
With that, every person in the theater grabbed his hat and coat and ran
swiftly onto the street and down to the steamer dock, leaving a
much-astonished actress on the stage.
My job as a critic had brought me in touch with the literary and stage
folk, but I was eager to meet the painters. Alas! they were woefully
few. Perhaps nature, in this part of the land, was too overwhelming; but
I think it was because new countries seldom produce artists. However,
besides Hill, there was almost no one but William Keith putting upon
canvas the beauty of the California landscape. He was much more the
traditional painter person than Frank Duveneck, and, although he really
had money, he preferred to give the impression of the wild-eyed genius
starving and striving to get along. I was still using my rattly old tin
box, and it fascinated me to steal into his studio and watch this
tousle-headed, pallid man put enormous quantities of paint upon large
canvases in the most extravagant manner.
An artist who expected to live by his painting had a hard row to hoe.
These rich miners cared not a whit for art, and any pictures they bought
were purchased through Eastern or foreign dealers who took occasion to
get rid of a great number of spurious “old masters” on the unsuspecting
Californian. Most of the fortunes had been made quite unawares by
illiterate and uncultivated men whose taste was vulgar to the extreme.
These were the days of terrific financial excitement of the silver mines
of Nevada, of the almost overnight millionaires such as Flood, Mackay,
O’Brien, and Fair. The Comstock Lode, purchased at about two dollars a
share from the poor prospector who discovered the vein, was selling,
when I was out West, at something like $3500 for one-fourth of a share
and paying a twenty-five per cent dividend quarterly. Is it any wonder
they sometimes lost their heads?
Speculation ran riot, and the gambling instinct (which is almost a
disease in California) had a chance to spread itself over an entire
population who would almost sell their souls to bet upon what the deep,
dark earth would yield on the morrow. In my small way I was affected;
but I can remember being in only one real deal. My cousin ran into the
store out of breath one day, saying:
“Have you any money? Don’t ask me why, but give it to me.”
I had diligently saved about sixteen dollars, and it amused me to try
the gamble.
In a few days he returned and spilled two or three hundred dollars in
gold on the counter. My winnings! As secretary to Adolph Sutro he had
got a tip before the Stock Exchange heard of it. This sort of thing was
happening every few days.
Adolph Sutro was one of the few educated men of the time. He was a
black-bearded, serious, learned Jew, and more of an artist in his line
than the others. He carried out many plans for beautifying San
Francisco, built the Sutro Gardens and the large baths out by the ocean,
and tried to encourage an interest in the fine arts by sending students
abroad to study. I have sat many a time in his downtown office and heard
him talk about his plans for the Sutro Tunnel. He had seen the suffering
of the men in the mines on account of heat and bad air, and the troubles
that occurred from the water that had to be constantly pumped out. So he
worked out a theory for the construction of a tunnel into the Comstock
and other mines, which would begin at a low level and run deep into the
mountain, meeting the mines, draining them, and forming a passage
through which the ore could be brought out. After encountering many
difficulties in financing his project, he obtained his capital from the
East and even from Europe, but the hardships had just begun. The first
attempts were failures from an engineering point of view, but the final
result was of inestimable benefit to the country. Mr. Sutro helped
personally with the work, and could be seen with coat off at the head of
a gang of laborers, helping with his bare hands to make his dream come
true.
Hospitality stretched to its utmost limits in California during the
’seventies. Anything the state produced belonged to the meanest of God’s
creatures. I remember being invited to visit at a country place and,
walking over the estate, hesitated to pick any of the fruit. I was
laughed at.
“The fruit grows on the trees for any man to pick,” said my host.
It was literally true: but the memory of being whipped, in Concord days,
for climbing a wall and picking a pear, was too recent for me to
understand this point of view.
One of the most lavish entertainers, and a man to whom the city of San
Francisco owes a great debt, was William Ralston. He started numberless
civic enterprises, one of which was a hotel which was to make her famous
the world over; and he imbued that hotel with a spirit, a hospitality,
and an atmosphere which have endured to the present time. Into every
detail of this hostelry he put the most loving care. After the fire of
1906, which completely demolished the inside, the walls remained as
stanch and firm as they ever were and completely earthquake proof—due to
their enormous thickness.
The rooms were built around a central court, very much like a patio.
Horses and carriages drove right in here, depositing guests almost at
the office desk. The furniture for all the rooms was made of solid
mahogany which Mr. Ralston brought all the way from South America in a
big white fleet sent down for the purpose. Nothing more completely
Western or completely comfortable could be imagined. If you stopped at
the Palace Hotel, you were certain to get the feeling that you were
somebody’s personal guest and that that somebody had taken a great deal
of trouble for your ease and enjoyment.
In his own home at Belmont, Mr. Ralston was an extravagant host. The
immense house was always crowded with guests, and from a specially
constructed gallery he looked down (like an Emperor of Rome) upon these
numbers of people, each one amusing himself according to his own
personal desire. But emperors fall, and there are always people jealous
of a dictator, no matter how just he may be. Ralston lived for others
and consequently trusted others; therefore, the blow must have been
harder to bear when it fell.
I saw him the day he was asked to resign from the presidency of the
California Bank. It was right after he had left the board of directors.
He did not act in any way unusual, but came out of the building, went
straight to his carriage, and drove away. That was in the morning. The
evening papers had the account of his suicide. He had gone out to North
Beach to have his daily swim, and, contrary to his usual habit, left his
watch and valuables in the life saver’s hands, waded into the water, and
was gone.
One could hardly pass over the dreamers of the West without telling of
the greatest of them all—the Emperor Norton. His was a vision worth
having, for he believed himself the deposed ruler of the vast kingdom of
the United States. Foully ousted from his throne, he was only biding the
time when he would come into what was rightfully his. I suppose “the few
faithful subjects,” who stuck to him were the citizens of San Francisco.
At any rate, they furnished him with a living and the few luxuries he
deemed necessary in his exile. They called him a “natural,” but I often
suspected him of being more clever than they knew.
The Emperor looked very much like General Grant, perhaps because of his
bushy beard and long blue army coat. In his top hat he wore a feather
and elaborate gold epaulets on his shoulders, while across his breast
were rows and rows of medals. He was in no way shabby, and, in _spite_
of his costume, gave the impression of mighty dignity. No one laughed at
him, no one interfered with him, and he went his way, receiving
everything he wanted without paying a cent. Charity? Not at all. He took
it as his right. The street cars belonged to him; therefore, he rode for
nothing.
He always looked neat, with his boots beautifully polished—again
gratis—by any bootblack in the town. Many times he came into our store,
asked to see some articles of merchandise, looked them over carefully,
and selecting what he wanted, said ponderously:
“I am the Emperor Norton. I will settle for this when I come into my
throne.”
No one ever knew where he lived. He never asked to have anything sent
home, and his purchases were never extravagant. His imagination was slow
when it came to material things, or he may have been sly enough to know
just how far to go. If he needed a little small change, he sold, at a
discount, beautifully made out drafts on his future exchequer.
Many a time I have seen him walk into a restaurant with measured
tread—he never hurried. The head waiter would rush up to greet him
respectfully. The Emperor would ask:
“Is my food ready?”
“Right away, Emperor.”
He would be seated at the best table and given the best the house
afforded. Having finished, he would walk out majestically without
paying, of course. The Emperor Norton _never_ got out of his part.
This could never have happened in the East. In Concord, Massachusetts,
people would have lifted their eyebrows and given him food and raiment
as if he were a tramp, but indulged him in his whimsies—never! In New
York, those smart society women who send their daughters out upon Fifth
Avenue to beg money for various charities would most certainly have had
the Emperor Norton put in an institution for the insane.